Published date: Feb 1981, New Delhi

Very little authentic reportage has emerged from Iran since the nation’s Shia clergy led a mass revolt against the Shah in early 1979. Strategically and economically, Iran has become very important for India since then. One-third of our oil imports come from there, while our exports to Iran have boomed after the US hostage capture led to western trade sanctions that were exacerbated by the Iran-Iraq war.

Which was why NEW DELHI was keen to ensure that correspondent Chaitanya Kalbag was aboard the first Bombay- Teheran flight (in late December) after the war began. This was Kalbag’s first foreign assignment. His extensive northeast reportage for NEW DELHI had prepared him for the possibility of post-revolution Iran being a tough job. But the chaos and demoralisation he encountered as he travelled across Iran dismayed him.

Equally disappointing was evidence that Iran’s Shia clergy, while stamping on its allies in the revolution, have taken the low road to regressive Islamisation. Midway through his stay, when he had to get his visa extended, letters from the Iranian Foreign and Information Ministries proved worthless as far as the national police were concerned. When Kalbag expressed surprise at this, the police captain told him:

“Stay a while longer in Iran. You will learn a lot.” It was a searing “learning experience”, as the Americans who have de- parted Iran would say. From the voluminous mate- rial he collected during a three-week stay that took in Teheran, Esfahan, Tabriz and Shiraz, Kalbag pre- pared this fortnight’s cover story, whose facts point to an inescapable conclusion: Iran is headed towards an anti-clergy revolt.

“The best definition of anarchy’ is Iran today.” says Kalbag, whose last memory of Iran-an un- commonly vicious customs check at Teheran’s Mehra- bad airport-did not help any. His notes escaped confiscation, fortunately, because no one knew English.

Even as Kalbag was boarding his flight home, Business Editor TN Ninan was in Pune, at the Rajneesh Ashram-discovering to his amazement that this ‘Buddha field’ is a flourishing multinational business enterprise run by an efficient Gujarati lady, Ma Yoga Laxmi. The Rajneesh foundation, Ninan discovered, has some 50 production units with an annual income running to many crores of rupees. The profits are going to be invested in a new complex in Gujarat that will cost Rs 35 to Rs 40 crores. Ninan’s report, elsewhere in this issue, focuses on this little known aspect of the Rajneesh phenomenon.